Not Exactly an Emergency...

The Pipsqueak is, if nothing else, consistent. Her likes, her dislikes, her sense of self, her empathy, her willingness to help... the list goes on, and much of it is positives.

Then there's the issue of her teeth. Y'see, they don't like leaving.  She didn't even start losing her baby teeth until nearly all her classmates had lost at least 2-3 of theirs, and when she loses them... well, it takes a while. They get wiggly, they get bothersome, they hang on by a thread of tissue here, a bit of gum there... until (eventually) either they come loose while she's eating, or she worries at them until they finally let go.

Well, one tooth decided to make itself a bit more memorable.  It got a little loose, then it got a little looser, and then it got wiggly (over the course of 3-4 weeks).  Miri worried at it with her tongue, wiggled it with her fingers... and it just continued hangin' in there...

...until a part of it came out.  Yep, you read that, part of the tooth came out while the remainder stuck resolutely to its spot in her mouth. There was no pain, no blood... just part of a tooth.

And then it did it again... still leaving a chunk of itself in place (still wiggly but definitely not showing any propensity toward actually leaving).

So, after a couple of phone calls, Miri left her math class 15 minutes early this past morning and we drove to the dentist. (AJ couldn't take still more time out of an especially busy time of day for what was a concern but truly not an emergency.)  AJ told me the process: park the car, then call the dental office and they would either clear us to come up (it's a very small waiting room) or give us a round figure on how long we'd have to wait & then call us when it was OK for us to come in.

There was a minor glitch when AJ called me (just as I was tying my shoes) to let me know the dentist's office had just called her to say they were running about 15 minutes late, but that just made it easier or Miri to pack up all her school stuff -- necessary because she was going to complete the day at Grandma & Grandpa's while Yours Truly did a shopping safari before taking her to dance in the afternoon. Ironically, her dentist is in the same building as her dance studio.... but she still had PE and Digital Literacy and at least one more class to complete in the afternoon for school, so I'd have to drive her back & forth.

We got there in plenty of time, since I've finally begun to remember to turn off on the road that leads almost directly to the  building instead of driving aaaallll the way up to the main road and then taking that back down toward the correct area... and despite the horrible Bluetooth connection between my phone and my car were able to hear the receptionist tell us it would be a few more minutes.

We sat in the car (A/C running because it was so warm & humid) only to see the director o the dance studio drive by. She waved, then parked & walked back to the car and greeted us with a cheerful, "Did I miss a memo or something?"  I explained we were waiting for the dentist to call us up, and were invitied to come inside & wait in the comfort of the air-conditioned studio's couch.  Of course, the moment we crossed the threshold of the building, my phone rang -- the dentist was ready to see Miri.

I sat & futzed around on my phone (after one of the techs checked both our temperatures) while Miri answered a bunch of health questions & then bravely went back into the next room on her own.  She had said (several times) that her only concern was having to gargle with some kind of disinfecting solution that she said tasted really, really bad, but it was obvious she was nervous about the whole idea of possibly needing a tooth extraction or more. (Runs in the family; I'm one of those people who holds death and dentistry in near-equal status on the fear scale.)

Less than 15 minutes later, she was back out, puffy cheeked and a little red-faced, with the dentist exclaiming, "She's a champ!"  Apparently Miri had turned down a Novocaine injection and the dentist had simply done the extraction with a topical anesthetic... which, of course, didn't quite stop all the pain but had the unpleasant side effect of having the poor kid drooling into her mask.

I was a little concerned on the way back to the car because Miri communicated (barely -- it's hard to talk when you have a mouthful of gauze and cannot feel your lips or tongue) that she was beginning to feel increasingly sore, and I tried to keep an eye on her during the drive to Mom & Dad's (she's still too short to sit in the front seat).  After a few abortive attempts at talking -- and a quick "I NEED TO SPIT!" that had me hand her a plastic bag followed by a muffled, "thnkyoo" -- she just sat quietly, just giving me a silent thumbs-up when I asked how she was doing.

That said, my concern vanished just before we reached Mom & Dad's neighborhood; MC Hammer's "U Can't Touch This" came on the radio and my niece began loudly singing along and dancing to the music. (Both very admirable feats when one has a numb mouth full of gauze and is wearing a seat belt while seated in a moving vehicle.)

By the time the school day was over, Miri was back to her usual self, speaking clearly and more worried about homework or what the plans were for the weekend than about her tooth.

And the tooth...?  The dentist put it in a little plastic box so Miri can collect from the Tooth Fairy. :-)

PS -- I did it again. Nineteen years later, I again told myself, "You'll be okay watching" and brought up a few of the 9/11 videos on YouTube.  Did not go well.  (Thus the 4:20am publication of this post.)  Do not let your anger & anguish turn to fear or hatred -- but never forget.

Waitaminit -- MIDDLE SCHOOL Already?!?

 Holy cow, she's growing up fast...!

I (obviously) took a little time off from blogging after completing my "ten years ago today" retrospective, and have been working on just plain ol' catching up... You know, trying to figure out what's taken up residence under the bed, tossing out all those AT&T long distance bills from 1988, and helping AJ & Miri figure out what school supplies were needed vs. already on hand but not really wanted vs. already here and OK to use... while trying to figure out if/how/when/where Miri would actually be attending school.

But not just any school -- he's in middle school now (grades 6-7-8), with her career as an elementary school "little kid" behind her.  That fact has been boggling the minds of the entire family for about a month now, but as for the Pipsqueak... Well...

My niece has always been one to worry about change, and about doing well, and about not making a mistake in her schoolwork.  (Witness one of the math practice sessions with Yours Truly over the summer, when we were going over some equations: I asked, "What operation do you need here?" and after a long, pregnant silence, Miri replied with a long, drawn-out, whispered, "muuuultiplicaaaaation...?" in a steadily rising tone. When I laughed and said it was okay to say it out loud and that if she got it wrong it was all just part of the learning process, she started laughing and admitted that she just was worried about giving me the wrong answer and proceeded to solve the problem correctly. And then did the same kind of thing with the next problem... and the one after that... and the one after that... and... <sigh>)

Well, if ya puts all that into a jar an' screws the lid on tight and shakes it to see if they'll fight... They does.

Miri mentioned middle school once or twice during the third quarter of 5th grade, and then moved on to mentioning it once or twice a week, and then to mentioning it on (at least) a daily basis.  I place part of this squarely at the feet of one of her teachers who seemed to really enjoy psyching out his students when it came to information about moving forward through the school system, but the majority was just the Pipsqueak's concerns bubbling to the top.  The mentions became questions, and then the questions became discussions, and soon we all lost count of how many times we'd had to tell the poor kid that...

1) She had been in school most of her life by this point, and middle school was just that: school; 

2) She already knew a big chunk of the kids who were going to the new school, and that meeting new people there was no different than meeting new people at the beginning of each season at the dance studio; 

3) Her concerns about not being any good in math didn't jive with her getting STRAIGHT A's last year (yes, I'm kvelling again);

4) We had her back and would be more than happy to help her out, and that everything we'd heard about the faculty at the middle school was positive; and

5) School was going to be virtual at least through the end of the year so she was going to be at home for classes anyway.

What we were saying (and there's plenty more where the above came from!) seemed to slowly seep into Miri's head, but she was still obviously worried as the first day of school got closer... and closer... and then omigoshschoolstartsTODAY!

For a variety of reasons (mostly concerns about technical "what ifs" and Yours Truly being the family's User Support Department for anything tech-related), Miri spent her first day of school working at my dining room table.  AJ took the classic "first day of school" photo (to the left) in their driveway, then brought her over to my house.  Bleary-eyed, I opened the door only to have Miri come flying in because she was sure that all the bugs in my neighborhood were about to attack her (she is frequently chomped on by an amazing variety of flying insects; they seem to find her tastier than average).  There was the usual "Good morning can I have an English muffin with cheese for breakfast thank you I love you where do I put my Chromebook thanks" and she began plugging in the assorted devices that she was lugging around in her backpack. (When full, that backpack actually weighs almost as much as she does; none of us are looking forward to the local kids' physical return to school because they've already been told "no lockers" so they'll have to lug the full loads around school with them.)

I sat nearby, just doing some of my own work on my laptop while keeping half an ear tuned to what was happening in each class.  (I wasn't eavesdropping or spying; Miri herself had asked that I listen in to make sure she didn't miss anything important and to help ASAP if any technical problems cropped up.)  The first day was a modified schedule with all classes meeting for a short time -- normally there would only be 4 of the 8 classes on a single day -- and by lunchtime the Pipsqueak had to admit that it looked like all her worrying had been for nothing.  The trend continued through the rest of the day, with Miri paying close attention (and discovering too late she'd forgotten to charge the cordless headphones I'd gotten her so she had to plug everything in), becoming happier and more relaxed by the minute.

Finally, school was done for the day and my niece teleported herself to the living room sofa and began a Zoom session with a bunch of her friends on her iPad.  (On & off during school, the iPad had lit up repeatedly with other kids texting in the middle of class. Miri was a champ, ignoring all the texts until the lunch break -- she even complained that it was "rude" for some of the kids to "spam" her with multiple texts while they were all supposed to be in class.)  I admit that I laughed out loud -- and got a dirty look that quickly turned to laughter -- when I heard her tell her friends, "I was scared of middle school for nothing! School is fun!"

So here we go, with that scrawny little toddler you all saw in my ten-year retrospective now attending middle school and asking for help with homework that's pushing the limits of my own memory & education. Wow, that decade went by fast...!

Oh, and a little bonus... Despite all the drawbacks to having an entire county's worth of kids staying at home for school, there are still some "learning moments" well worth the disruption. Sometimes they involve school, sometimes they involve personal habits...

...and sometimes they're just a way cool close view of the world around us.  (These are actually from a couple of days before school started, but Miri was here reading on my couch when I sensed motion out of the corner of my eye.)

The little fella on the left actually spent almost a minute just watching us watch him, then happily chowed down on the saplings in those pots (OK by me, they kinda planted themselves in pots I wasn't using and there are already trees aplenty back there). He wandered back & forth in the yard, daintily sampling various green things, then was joined by Mama and a sibling(?) in the shade about 20 feet away.  Sure beats looking at photos in a book during science class!

So now we're settling into a new routine, with Miri here a couple of days a week and at our folks' a couple of days a week (AJ's work schedule is an absolute killer & none of us were happy with the idea of Miri being home alone all day). Today marks the beginning of a new season at the dance studio as well, so I'll be running here back & forth 4 nights a week for the rest of the year.  She's already earned a spot in a quad (4 dancers together) with some of her BFFs -- they call themselves the Soggy Potatoes! -- and was even chosen to do a solo dance in the holiday show & has begun working on the choreography... 

...so keep your eyes open for plenty of new adventures over the next few months!